As you all might recall, I have been trying to reduce the chemicals I buy, reduce the amount of money I spend at the same time as enjoying the whole process of making my own products. I am focusing on the kitchen first and the last time I posted about my home-made endeavors it was……
Category: Homeschooling
Precious Moments
It’s been another quiet week on the school side of things but very noisy on the coughing side of things with all of us down, to some degree, with a cold and flu type bug. I am once again so grateful to have Gary as my husband. For the two days I was feeling rotten……
Medieval Fashions: Knight’s Lady
C11 is doing her presentation at the feast on medieval fashions. She had made a fabulous start, creating a hand sewn costume for her medieval peasant doll. It had taken her much longer than anticipated, leaving only three weeks until the date of the feast to have her next costume completed by. This costume was……
T’s Home-Made Go-Cart
T12 has been busy making himself a go-cart, which he intends to race against his friend. T had been chuntering on as he so often does about the minutiae detail of his go-cart for weeks. He has questioned scientists and engineers alike, collected many scientific equations, all of which he understood but which left me……
Mothering Sunday
I have shared about my mother’s day before. Each day has been special and each day all about me. Yesterday was different. Sure, I still played a big part, but it could not have happened and would not have been so lovely if not for some very special people, who gave of themselves and of their time to……
Precious Memories
This was such a great week this week. We got loads done, had lots of free time and enjoyed each other thoroughly! My photos begin on Saturday. Saturdays are generally recognised as family work days in our house hold. This is our chance to wash cars, clean out animal living areas, wash bedding, garden, and……
Learning Opposites with Little Miss Neat
Using the above book I introduced the concept of opposites. I’m not B3 really understood but she enjoyed listening. I had photocopied some of the book covers of Mr Men and Little Miss characters, which were perfect for playing an opposites matching game: First I had A5 pair up the antonyms: She then suggested we play pairs……
Narrating with Little Miss Neat
We’ve been working on Little Miss Neat for the last couple of weeks. One of the activities I am trying to encourage A5 to do is narration. One big regret with my older ones is that I did not do it nearly enough with them. Narration is such an excellent prewriting skill and encourages clarity……
Medieval Feast: Meringue Swan Subtleties
For more information about medieval subtleties see here L11 had a few different ideas for subtleties (small favours served between courses). She has already made some marzipan ‘War of the Roses’ roses subtleties, now it was meringue swans. First she whipped up some egg whites and caster sugar and piped the meringues onto her design……
New School Room: Science Nook
A few of you asked for photos of some of our new educational nooks. I’ll post them as they are finished, and as work is very slooooow at the moment it will probably amount to a post every few months! Anyway, here is the science nook, almost finished: Here Gary is attaching the shelves he……
Precious Memories
This week has not been one of our academic successes. We often get weeks when one or other of us have absolutely no desire to work. This is normal and with the help of the others, the lethargic one is buoyed into action and the week remains fairly productive even for the reluctant child/adult. Very……
The Perfect School Day?
I had a whole different post planned for today until my youngest twin brought me her writing assignment yesterday for me to look over. I had asked them to write about their perfect home school day. T12 had written five sentences about how he would like to get all his school work done in the……
Week 50 – Looking Back Over Twelve months of our Pond
March 2013 April 2013 May 2013 June 2013 July 2013 August 2013 September 2013 October 2013 November 2013 December 2013 January 2014 February 2014 Next Week I’ll be sharing our plans for the next 12 months.
Medieval Fashions: Peasant Girl Design Board
Right at the beginning of this project I had encouraged C11 to make a design board in order to create a clearer idea of the clothes she wished to make for her dolls. Here is the initial sketch: This helped C11 to visualise and consolidate the ideas in her head. They also gave me a……
Medieval Fashion: Peasant girl
C11 has chosen to study medieval fashions for her project. Her intention was to make clothes for a medieval peasant, lady and princess. However, it has been much harder than she anticipated, and it has taken her almost eight weeks to do the peasant doll. We have decreased her wortk, therefore, to a peasant doll……